


Enough Rope (for you and me both)

by sybilius, tartpants



Series: Black Beats and Low Leads: Leads Notebook [5]
Category: Death Note, Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga), Death Note: Another Note
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Bondage, But some sweetness too, Butt Plugs, Drug Use (Implied), Established Relationship, Hallucinations, L is a speed freak, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Male Slash, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, People not communicating who really ought to, Rimming, Rope Bondage, Rough Oral Sex, Sex Toys, Shibari, Visions, murder mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 09:05:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10636704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartpants/pseuds/tartpants
Summary: After a pair of thankless cases, B and L meet up at L’s Marylebone apartment to spend time together. Trying to let go of the case leads to becoming closer  bound together-- both figuratively, and literally, through the art of Shibari, Japanese rope bondage.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A lead/side story from the Black Beats 'verse, these events take place about six months after "Thimbles and Buttons."

**April 13 1999**

 

The inky ocean beneath the night sky slowly gives way to the glitter of cities below, the European mainland coming into view. The roadways beneath shimmer distantly. _Like bigger constellations, connecting people and crimes._

 

Beyond Birthday is grateful he doesn’t fall asleep on the Reyjavik connection to Heathrow. Blood from the last job still flickers on his knuckles, even though he well knows they’ve been days clean. He’s somewhere between wrung out and keyed up when he hails a cab in the dim London drizzle, his leather jacket barely providing shelter from the damp.

 

“Where to, sir?” the cabbie grunts, eyeing the heavy, beat up duffel bag B throws in the seat next to him.

 

“Marylebone,” B grunts, tilting his neck to get the kinks out. The driver raises an eyebrow, no doubt not used to driving greasy-haired criminals to London’s most affluent district. _At least not without notifying the police first_.

 

B’s eyes flicker shut, seeing the police from the last case momentarily-- no, not quite. _That was the DI from Nance’s case. Shit._ He forces his heavy eyes open as the rain on the windows pound back into his ears.

 

_Just get me to somewhere I can take a bit of a rest. I need to see him tonight._

 

The cab drives quickly enough, whether it be natural instinct or the desire to get B out of his car, B doesn’t much care. He shoves the cash in the driver’s hand with a mumble to ‘keep the change’, and splashes up the marble steps towards the elevator. _It’s alright. Home now, or something like it._  B punches in the 12-digit security code and tries to let his shoulders relax a bit.

 

Not that home looks to be all that relaxing.

 

The open concept space is dimly lit, the glow centered around the coffee table littered with foil wrappers and half-crumbled pastries that have a few-day-old look about them. Lenny is fussing about with piles of coffee cups in the kitchen, and flashes B a relieved smile when she sees him come in. _I guess I’m not the only one who worries._  Lawliet himself is perched testily in front of the laptop, fingers clenching and unclenching, and hair dripping slightly from a shower, no doubt.

 

_At least he’s clean on the outside_ , B thinks with a tiny bit of bitterness, though a small and selfish part of him wishes that Lawliet had waited, so that he could massage his scalp and trace the cases and the drugs down to nothingness.

 

“Hullo, B,” Lawliet at least attempts something like a smile, which probably would turn up if his stretched nerves didn’t give it a slight wince. He nods expectantly as B kicks off his shoes and settles into the cushions that crunch slightly with the plastic of the sweet-wrappers.

 

“Case turn up alright?”

 

* * *

 

 

L rode the last sixty hours hard, poring over copies of encrypted, classified documents stolen from the National Reconnaissance Office by former US Air Force Intelligence Officer Robert Peeke. Just four hours earlier, Watari phoned from the FBI’s headquarters to report that the Officer was successfully apprehended while trying to board a flight from D.C. to Switzerland, intending to sell the classified material to China, Iraq, and Libya for roughly $13 million dollars.

 

“Espionage.” The word cracks unpleasantly in L’s ears, and he draws the quilt he’s wrapped in more tightly around his shoulders. “There’s still pages and pages of missing documents, though. I predict he’ll lead the Feds to it in exchange for leniency.”

 

L tilts his head to get a good look at B for the first time since he’s come in. There’s a grey tint beneath his eye sockets that reminds L of himself, and he smells faintly of stale cigarettes, his fingers roaming restlessly along the back ledge of the sofa. L might be freshly showered but he knows he doesn’t look much better, the need for sleep a desperate ache in his limbs by now. Lenny hasn’t left, probably waiting for him to collapse into bed for twelve-to-fifteen hours, but the fact that she’s still hanging out in the same room means he hasn’t hacked her off yet. She’s the type to go into the study and put on her headphones when she’s annoyed with him.

 

“You alright?” L knows he should have asked roughly three minutes ago, and gives B’s restless fingers a squeeze to make up for it.

 

“Tired. Need a shower.” His eyes skip toward the kitchen and Lenny for a half-beat, enough to alert L to the fact that there’s more to the story that just needing a shower. “You alright?”

 

L’s smile feels stretched and hollow. “Already showered. You just missed it.” Almost a half hour of pounding water, hot as he could stand it, the steam scouring the last of the high out of him. “Getting close to my bedtime.” He nods toward the hallway and their bedroom just beyond.

 

B nods and runs the flat of his hand along the back of the quilt, sending a half-pleasant, half-wracking jolt down L’s spine. He draws in a sharp breath and looks at B blinkingly, then comes to his feet, quilt still swaddled around him.

 

“Honestly, you can just leave those,” he says to Lenny when he wanders past the kitchen island with its various unwashed coffee cups. “That’s what the dishwasher’s for.” Now that B’s here, L wants Lenny to make herself scarce. It’s what Watari would have done. “And you should get some sleep, too,” he adds with a smile that’s more than a little forced.

 

* * *

 

“Let me give you a hand, I’ll take em, Lenny,” B shuffles upward from the couch, a little anxious to ask her how Lawliet has been. _At least, the questions I can’t ask him._ Lawliet’s habits, which he considered essential to his function as ‘L’, _whatever the hell that meant_ , were something that belonged to the Detective L, and was therefore beyond question.

 

“Just leave them for the morning, B,” L mumbles, but there’s just the slightest edge to it.

 

“Alright, I’ll be right over, just go rest, okay? Gonna fix myself something,” B makes a show of getting the milk out of the fridge, even though his stomach is more knotted than hungry, “You alright, too?”

 

“It was a long case. He pushed hard on the last...two and a half days. But it’s closed now, and America is right pleased with L. So there’s that,” Lenny is thoughtful, but practically minded. B has half a mind to offer her a cigarette, though he knows she doesn’t smoke. _Looks like she could use one._

 

“He used recently?”

 

She shakes her head, heading for her shoes by the door, “Not in the last six hours, as far as I can tell. And it shows, too. He’s been a bit testy.”

 

“Right. Thanks Lenny. Go get some rest, huh?”

 

“Thanks, B. Make sure he does too,” she gives him a wan smile before shutting the door behind her.

 

B slouches towards the master bedroom, half expecting Lawliet to have already passed out. But he’s sitting up, his slightly greyed skin plumped against the mountain of pillows and the quilt still resting against his thin shoulders.

 

He raises his head like it’s weighted down, but is almost defiant about it. _Yeah alright. I see you’re doing alright._

 

_Guess that makes two of us._

 

B half collapses his side of the bed, leaning over to kiss Lawliet slowly, the fire and murder of the last few days feeling slightly more distant next to the clean smell and taste of his sweetness. He pulls away, exhaling into the bed and feeling the limpness in Lawliet’s grip, “Long case for both of us, huh?”

 

* * *

 

 

The moon is searing tonight, sending bright beams through the blinds that make L want to roll over and burrow himself in the pillows. The conversation out in the kitchen is soft and unintelligible, but L knows exactly what it’s about. He is L, after all.

 

He doesn’t defend himself, anymore; the results he gets are defense enough. An Air Force Intelligence officer is trained to go without sleep for long stretches -- in fact, Peeke might take the same prescription grade dextroamphetamine that L prefers. It would explain how he had the energy and foresight to bury over 20,000 pages and 100 tapes of classified information in various isolated spots throughout Maryland and Virginia. Had L not sustained his energy for that marathon of hours, Peeke might have found his way onto that flight to Switzerland, widening his circle of damage. The FBI would have tracked him down eventually, yes, but that’s what makes L better than the FBI. He doesn’t need ‘eventually.’

 

The only thing L wonders if he’s addicted to is all those waking nights, so free of dreams and nightmares, and the one glimmer of good in comedown is that fatigue buries any and all dreams in a crush of forgetfulness.

 

B stops in the bedroom doorway, a scrutinizing shadow -- or maybe that’s just exhaustion tugging at the corner of his eyes. Comedown makes L suspicious and harsh. Even so, his intuition caught the whiff of murder and bloodshed on B as soon as he entered the flat. Yes -- B’s not just exhausted, he’s _spent_.

 

But L keeps quiet, allowing B to press his heat and weight into him, sinking them deep into the mound of pillows. Their kiss is lengthy but restrained, withheld words pounding beneath.

 

“Long case for both of us, huh?” B’s fingers rest at the pulse of L’s throat and L nods against them, pressing his thigh against B’s half-hard cock.

 

“Sleep first?” To fuck now would be futile. B nods and pushes himself off the bed, tossing his jacket onto a chair.

 

* * *

 

“Lemme shower first, then I’m right there with you,” B is a little too willing to wriggle out of Lawliet’s touch, suddenly remembering how the same fingers that caress Lawliet’s throat squeezed at the driver’s neck until the man went limp enough to slash out his eyes.

 

_Bleak Birdie’s calling card._ B likes it, or some part of him does, the moment before the bleary eyes realize the last thing they’re seeing is red eyes and the flicker of a scalpel knife.

 

_Not that they see the red, but still. They know what I am._

 

The warm water doesn’t let B forget it either. It stings, a bit, on his torn knuckles   _Still, I’m here, aren’t I? And that fucker is off the streets, by one way or another, along with the gang that wanted him dead._

 

B reminds himself, that’s what makes the flicker of blood running down the drain worth it, though in the mirror he catches the grin of that _self-centered fucker of a boss_ , Gibson, who treated his whores like poorly trained dogs.

 

The one who took a shine to him had her date up in a week, as much as Gibson goaded her into it. _Laila, they called her. Lucy Parry. She wasn’t much like Nance, though._

 

He winces a bit as those memories come roiling back unbidden. _Yeah, another thing about the case that was a fucking ride. Another person I’d like to remember, like better to forget._ He barely notices he’s crouched to his knees in the shower, starting to shiver a bit without the warm rain.

 

Looks a little like her room in the _Scarlet Letter_ , the cool fluorescent lights dimming under the sweep of memories.

 

_Come on, stay here, stay here._

 

B isn’t sure if he wishes Lawliet were up to see him like this. _Not sure there’d be much to say. That he’d have much to say to something like me._  He exhales and focuses on familiar smells and sensations, rather than giving in to the desire to smash his fist against the shower tiles. The goosebumps rising on his skin. The slightly sweet scent of Lawliet’s shampoo. The way his teeth impulsively reach for his ragged knuckles.

 

_Get it together. Get some sleep._

 

Once he makes it to the bed, his heart rate has calmed a little, closing his eyes seems like something that’s...manageable. The sight of Lawliet looking wrung-out but tucked safe under the covers helps that a bit. B smiles weakly and Lawliet manages to beckon him close, even through his exhaustion.  

 

_It’s alright then,_ he thinks to himself, as he burrows his cheek next to Lawliet’s shoulder. _We’re both here._

 

* * *

 

L doesn’t remember much of his dreams. A woman with dark hair and eyes, the smile of a friendly stranger. She walks him all the way to the far end of the playground before he remembers her name: _Saskia_ . His mother. She squeezes his hand, her suddenly-whiskered mouth muttering the words he braces himself for: _“You better come with me, kid.”_ A man’s voice, and with it a black fear that plunges L  straight into the playground dirt, sand funnelling down his throat so that he wakes up with a gasp and sits straight up on the bed, like a vampire popping from his coffin. The bedframe shakes slightly, a reminder that he’s not alone tonight.

 

“B, you’re having a nightmare.” The memories of his own have already been knocked clean away by the limbs thrashing beside him. B’s eyeballs race circles beneath his thin eyelids, a low moan shuddering his chest. “B.” Rolling onto his knees, L puts a careful hand on his arm.

 

Flinching away, B vice-grips the mattress and a word rips from his throat. “Nance!” His eyes are open but his throat is gulping, wracked with gasps at the images that fill the line between waking and dreaming. L holds steady beside him. As bad as the visions get, sometimes, B has never mistaken L for one of the ghouls, never reached out to strike him away.

 

“M’here.” L squeezes B’s hand, knowing how touch grounds him, gives him back what’s real.

 

The disorientation gradually blinks off of B’s face, his other hand wrapped tight around L’s forearm.

 

“Okay. M’okay. God.”

 

“You had a nightmare, I think.” L rakes his hair out of his eyes and peers down at B, sucking in slightly on his lower lip. “Gone now?”  


B nods slowly -- too slow for L to take it as one-hundred percent true.

 

L glances at the clock and discovers they’ve slept just under seven hours. He needs at least double that and B probably does, too. But there’s a keyed-up energy in the air now. They’re both wide awake, at least for the moment.

 

* * *

 

 

The nightmare still hangs on every corner of the room, colored with crimson lips and crumbled blood. B wants to wriggle out of Lawliet’s hands, clap his hands over his ears to hear, nothing, wants to burrow his head in Lawliet’s neck and grip, see nothing.

 

Kind whispers. The worst are the kind whispers. _Nance was kind._

 

“Don’t make friends when you know their death date is soon,” B says it flatly, hoping that speaking through the whispers will diminish them a bit.

 

“Did a friend die?” Lawliet’s voice barely cuts through the fog. _Just. Breathe alright, jesus._

 

_Lawliet’s with you. Nothing’s going to happen, it’s just the memories._

 

“Nance. She was called Nance,” his voices sounds ragged even to himself, his breath picking up without permission, “This was--- not that long after. It was ‘94. Did you ever hear of that killer in Florida? The preacher?”

 

“I did, yes. Arson and murder charges, was it not?”

 

It had been a slasher case, the prostitutes found carved up and poorly hidden flesh and limbs in city parks all over the state, B can still see the photographs clutched in his hands, the newspaper clippings he pinned to his hotel walls and willed himself to _think like fucking Lawliet_.

 

Lawliet squeezes his hand tighter in the reality of the room. It doesn’t do much for the memories painting the walls with the ugly peeling wallpaper of Nance’s shitty apartment.

 

“Nance was a contact. Prostitute in Brandon, sharp. Used to be from Tampa, but had the good sense to get the hell out of there when the bodies turned up in Clearwater. Seemed like a long shot, but she knew-- she knew.”

 

_She knew who he was after, knew when he came up the streets and started eyeing her sisters with such shit in his eyes._

 

The killer was slippery, but it was B who connected the movements to a travelling Mormon family. The preacher was every bit the devout and pious father on the outside-- _but then, they always  have something they want on the inside._ She wasn’t surprised when he told him, wanted to help when he told her he was going to go after him.

 

“She was good to me, wasn’t she?” B murmurs at the image of her knotted blonde hair, “Taught me how to make ‘em want me. Even let me pretend to be her son, to talk to that fucker. I knew she was a goner and I probably put her in his sights.”

 

B is only half-aware he’s becoming incoherent, the images of her corpse painting the wallpaper in ugly sprays and her sister, who was going to walk the streets that night in her place _screaming--_ Her eyes wide open when they should have been shut-- _I knew she had to die but like that?_

 

_god I should have killed her myself I couldn’t do it then but I’d do it now I couldn’t but I’d do it because I have to._

 

“Christ, why the hell did I let her anywhere near me, jesus shit, I should have --” he tightens his grip on Lawliet’s distant fingertips, numb almost from lack of circulation, tries to loosen his fingers and curls his knees closer to himself.

 

_It just wasn’t enough. Solving her case wasn’t gonna save her. And I sure as hell couldn’t._

 

* * *

 

L doesn’t like to think of the years that he and B spent apart, all that time to transform themselves into islands, to make it so much harder for them to cross the stormy sea again. They managed it despite that gulf of time and distance, but that didn’t mean the gulf wasn’t still there. _Nance_ \-- a name that L never picked up when he checked on B during those years apart. If it weren’t for B’s desperation, for the clawing grip of his hands and the shattered rhythm of his breath, L might feel a prickle of jealousy. B can connect to others, can feel in ways that L can’t, but he can never escape the reminder that everyone’s a corpse, eventually.

 

_And Nance was the one who taught B how to make others want him._ Before L can resent her for that, he remembers that he taught B that, too, back on the other side of the gulf. Just thirteen years old, they’d been, with B going undercover as a girl for only the second time. _Brianne? Rianne? What was it?_ The pseud escapes him, but not the cascading blond wig, nor the gloved grip of the purple gown. And what was it that L said to B then, watching him peel the disguise off? _You make a better femme fatale than A does._

 

He rakes his fingers through B’s tangled curls, his hand massaging the back of his neck. _Never thought you’d take it so far. Any of it._

 

The inner-voice L rarely listens to floats an unwelcome echo up, through the ether. _Never thought I would, either._ They’ve both learned to go to extremes, in their own ways. To bag and kill the case, always -- no exceptions.

 

He concentrates on tracing his fingers up and down the ladder of B’s spine. “Any visions?” His next steps depend on the answer. Will it be food and forced normalcy? Cuddles and bad movies? Sex in a whole range of possibilities -- be it raw savagery or tender, careful orchestration? _Or that rare and uniquely satisfying hybrid of the two?_

 

“Memories, yeah. Pretty sure. Thought I’d buried her but this case --” B shifts away from L’s touch, crunching in on himself, his voice muffled against his raised knee. “Don’t know if it would have been better to have known me, now. Fuck.”

 

_Knowing you isn’t what killed her._ L holds the words in. They feel too dangerous.

 

He settles back on his heels, searching out B’s eyes in the half-light of the room, almost certain he detects a flicker of want there, despite the fact that B moved away. But he needs to be certain, tips forward until their faces are only a foot apart.

 

“What can I do, B?”

 

* * *

 

 

_Stop me--_ the words fly immediately to B’s mind in the black hole of Lawliet’s gaze, but somehow, that’s not what he needs either. Nance’s smile with her crooked teeth accuses him from across the room and _she knew what I am she didn’t say it but she knew too--_ the thoughts slow blessedly for a moment when he breathes in Lawliet’s gentle sugar-dirt scent.

 

_Does he know?_ Lawliet’s eyes swallow him up, turning his harried thoughts inside out to something manageable. _Of course._ Lawliet sees, sees everything and nothing like the detective he is. _He’ll always know me._

 

In the sharpening of that moment, B knows what he wants: to chase away the crawling revulsion of his skin, the whispers in the dark so that it’s just him and the lover he doesn’t have damn near as much as he wants of.

 

“Get the cuffs,” B meets Lawliet’s eyes full on, giving him complete certainty. Lawliet looks surprised and a touch grateful. _I mean, it is what we’re both good at._

 

_But fuck, it’s what I want right now. Not the memories. Not the monster I am. Just him._

 

Lawliet returns with the familiar metal glinting in the half-light, but with an unfamiliar black rope looped against his pale arm, “Do you want something new? It’ll be slower. But I’ve practiced, a bit.”

 

Lawliet leans in, gentle and careful in spite of the dark scars under his eyes. B is starting to see the flush rising in his cheeks sharper than the ghosts in the shadows of the window.

 

“Yeah, just-- do it,” B swallows. _Don’t let me go._

 

* * *

 

 

B’s voice is gruff, but more with desperation than desire. L drops his tools to the rug and climbs onto the bed to straddle B, tugging gently at his hair as he trails slow kisses down his jawline and neck, his tongue massaging the pulse at the base of his throat until B groans and rakes his fingers down L’s naked back.

 

“What’s the new thing? Show me.” An edge of breathless now. Curiosity. _Good._

 

L dangles far enough over the bed to pick up the bundle of rope, sliding open the nightstand drawer at the same time and removing a book and a pair of heavy-duty cutting shears. The latter he lays on top the nightstand, next to B’s half-drained glass of water. The book had stressed how important it was to have emergency shears nearby in case of circulation issues.

 

“Remember this?” L tilts the book toward B. The cover features a nude woman photographed from behind, her body suspended from a complex and delicate web of rope, bright pink cherry blossoms tucked into the weave at her back. _The Art of Kinbaku and Shibari._ L first spotted the book on B’s 19th birthday, back in November. They’d seen a punk band, a favourite of B’s, play a riotous gig out in Brixton. Afterward -- ears ringing, the rest of them ready to fuck -- they stumbled into a sex shop so L could replenish his supply of lube. He eyed a number of the toys while he was at it, noting which ones he already owned and which he might _like_ to own, in the future. The small selection of educational books interested him more than the magazines of women with shiny balloon breasts, and he’d picked up _The Art of Kinbaku and Shibari_ right away, attracted to the erotic artistry of the cover photo. B had wandered over as he was flipping through it, studying the diagrams and knot-tutorials.

 

“Wow,” B had breathed in his ear, running his fingers over cover photograph. “That’s stunning.” L hadn’t bought the book that night, but it was less than a month before he came back for it.

 

Now B’s eyes light up at the book with familiarity. “Yeah. It was at that sex shop in Brixton. _Fetish Freak._ ”

 

L smiles a little. He’d forgotten the name of that shop, though he can admit now that the name of it is an eerily accurate description of himself. “I’ve been playing around with some different harnesses and knots.” He passes the book to B and loops the rope between his fingers. “Just something to fidget with while sitting at the computer.” Because those moments between case updates can feel excruciating, his body stiff from being crouched in one position for too long, his eyes stinging from the glare of the monitor. Tying knots and weaving rope is soothing, though. A channel for the artificial energy roiling within him.

 

“What do you think?” He steps off the bed long enough to slip his loose pajama pants off, then re-straddles B’s hips, his erection just brushing against B’s navel. Running the rope through his fingers, he can already visualize how stark it will look against B’s pale skin. Dropping his voice to a near-whisper, he leans in. “Can I tie you up?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Please,” B murmurs, the promise of bindings already giving him focus, his heartbeat picking up with curiosity rather than fear. Lawliet nods once and brings him in for a slow kiss to start, crawling fingers down his spine while the rope drapes loosely over B’s shoulder. He draws back for a moment, surprisingly gentle. _But then, he knows what it’s like when things get bad for me_.

That thought almost chokes B with gratitude, and he settles for tugging Lawliet closely back, clinging to his shoulder blades while he mouths down Lawliet’s neck.

“This good?”

“Getting better,” he nuzzles Lawliet’s neck before pulling back, offering the his body up, “Show me what you can do.”

“Are you fond of those boxers? Can I cut them off?” Lawliet reaches for the shears carefully, stroking the hair that’s starting to appear on B’s upper thighs.

“I don’t really need em, yeah—“ B mumbles, shivering as the metal of the shears glides along his skin, _snip, snip snip._

“I want you to know what it feels like in case I need to cut you out of the bindings later. Is this alright?” Lawliet tugs the thin fabric off of B’s thighs, eyeing his growing erection hungrily.

“Fuck, that’s…already hot,” B breathes. Lawliet chuckles, the husky weight of arousal already coloring his voice as he unravels the length of the rope.

“I’m going to bind your chest first, it’s more decorative than anything else, but the loops also go around the back of the neck and between your legs,” Lawliet offers up the rope, waiting for permission to shape B into the images from the book that now overtake B’s mind. _And those are a welcome sight, after everything else._

“Yeah—that sounds….yes,” B allows Lawliet to straighten his back, kneeling upwards on the bed as he goes to work.

Lawliet’s brow is furrowed in concentration as he loops the long rope once, twice, seven times around B’s torso. The weight of his gaze tugs B back to a vivid reality, sharply when he leans in to loop the rope around the back B’s neck  and lets a gust of breath nibble at B’s ear. The light on his fingertips is intoxicating, the dark rope nimbly working its way around B’s ribcage.

 

B gasps a tiny bit as the rope passes next to his cock, now fully hard, then up and around again. The rope feels soft and loose around his chest, but there’s an ornate element to the weavings, rather like a netting.

Lawliet kneels back,  frowning and nibbling at his thumb while holding the other end of the rope. B tilts his head, “You good?

 

* * *

  


“I don’t like how this is turning out,” L mumbles around his thumb, tugging idly at the rope. It’s made of jute, the best material for making fast ties and avoiding skin-burns, but the checkerboard harness design looks too busy, somehow, almost resembling a woven armor breastplate. “Sorry.” He gives B a quick smile, carefully unwinding the rope from between his legs and around his ribcage. “Got to start over.”

 

The rope puddles in B’s lap, catching on the end of his erection in a way that would almost be comical, if the atmosphere wasn’t so heavy with anticipation. L sucks in on his bottom lip, attention straying away from the rope as he palms B’s cock and scoots forward a little, massaging B’s head against his own, glistening with precum, and moaning quietly at the warm friction.

 

“Fuck,” B breathes, his eyes heavy with arousal as L loops the black rope around their shafts, effectively joining them together. The sensation is a little odd, but the sight of it so alien and erotic that they fall into a wet and fierce bout of kissing, teething at each others lips and twining their tongues together, fingernails scrabbling over soft skin.

 

“Mm.” L manages to pull away, wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand. “Keep getting distracted.”

 

“Not complaining.” B smiles and brings L’s fingers back to the rope. “But keep going.”

 

Remembered the designs he most intensely studied from the book, L loops the rope around B’s back and criss-crosses it at the spine, then brings it around to his chest. “Hold your fingers here,” he instructs, guiding B’s fingers so that the rope is tugged down on either side into an ‘L’ shape just above B’s shell-pink nipples. “Good.” He feeds the rope through both ‘L’s and repeats the process, moving further and further down B’s torso, occasionally instructing B to get on his knees and turn around so that he can check the tightness of the weave. Finally, he tugs both loose ends past B’s cock and between his legs, bringing them all the way up to tie at the neck.

 

“How does it feel? Any numbness?” B shakes his head no, so L gets off the bed and drags the standing mirror over to the side of the bed. B can still walk, for now, but bringing the mirror over to the bed is regular protocol -- L enjoys studying their fucking from all angles.

 

“It’s called a haze harness. What do you think?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Shit, it’s beautiful-- “ B turns slightly at the widely spaced loops that cross from his neck down to his cock. The ribcage shadows catch B by surprise, the way the tight rope patterns his skin to emphasize the muscle and bone underneath. The harness frames his cock in a way that leads the eye perfectly, “Like a fucking work of art, Lawliet.”

 

“Suits you, then,” Lawliet states matter-of-factly, but B glows a tiny bit. _He can still make me forget anyone else has ever looked at me._

 

Lawliet strokes his ass consideringly and B shivers, the rope digging between his legs simultaneously slightly uncomfortable and arousing. He crawls his fingers along Lawliet’s sharp hipbones towards his cock, but Lawliet nudges him in the shoulder gently, “Going to get me distracted. Legs or arms next?”

 

For a flash of a moment, B remembers how instinctively his hands reach for his knife, his Beretta during the tense past week. He offers his wrists without a word, while Lawliet loops and cinches the rope from his wrists to his elbows.

 

“Make it tight,” B mumbles halfway through, the sensation of the rope gradually bringing him back to reality. _Lucky for me I’ve never been tied up on the case, least of all naked._ It feels _amazing_ , though, better than the handcuffs for certain. The sensation of jute is sharp on all of his singing nerve endings, promising that _yes, you can hurt no one._

 

Lawliet’s presence promises, _yes, nothing will hurt you._ B wonders fleetingly if Nance ever had someone like that, before the crawl of Lawliet’s cool, bony fingers down his thigh erases any coherent thoughts from his mind. His finger work the rope around B’s legs, gentle teasing at his skin, “God that feels great. Fuck. I want you.”

 

“I know you can be patient,” Lawliet squeezes his ass gently, arranging B’s legs to the side while he loops the knot around B’s hips. In the mirror B can see how the final tie fits beautifully with the others, the thick knot from the leg bindings grazing the tip of his cock in a way that makes him twitch with anticipation. The rope is tightly looped at his feet, in larger loops along his legs creating an odd symmetry with his arm bindings, which Lawliet carefully maneuvers until B’s head rests on his elbows.

 

“How does it feel? Not too tight?” Lawliet tucks the hair out of B’s eyes, flushed with arousal and seemingly unable to decide where to look.

 

“Fucking fantastic, but I want you to touch me,” B begs, but the neediness is a little for show. He’s enjoying Lawliet’s fascinated gaze, the occasional reverent touch. Lawliet nibbles at his finger consideringly, and suddenly B knows what he’s thinking about, “But. If you want to get the camera, I can wait.”

 

* * *

 

The first time L had cuffed B to something (the headboard of a bed in a Berlin hotel) it had felt exciting and a little wrong. That element of wrongness only increased the excitement tenfold. _Taboos are only taboo based on our desire to transgress them_ he thought, feeling a strange and unusual kinship with the criminal element that he usually loathed. But then there was nothing illegal about his lover consenting to be restrained, and that made all the difference. Every time this happened, they both wanted it -- L made sure of it.

 

Despite B’s pleas to _‘make it tight,’_ L double checks that he can slip his fingers beneath the bindings before settling back to take in his work. He can’t decide what he likes best: B’s wrists woven with six-inches of rope and tied off with a fisherman’s knot; the pattern of the harness against his chest and torso; the manner in which the cords loop around his knees and down to his feet, almost delicately.

 

“Camera, yes.” L presses the back of his hand against his mouth and holds his breath for a moment, considering the tableau carefully. He finally rolls B onto his side, bending his knees and adjusting them until his ass is thrust out in a way that’s particularly inviting. As he works he feels B’s gaze running over every inch of him, but his expression is far calmer than when they first got started. A veil-like sense of peace always seems to fall over B when he’s restrained -- his sharp features softening even as his quickened pulse sends a pink flush across the surface of his skin. L can’t help but feel it, too. It makes his movements tender, a contrast to his usual state of deliberateness.   

 

“I can say with no exaggeration that you are truly beautiful,” says L, who rarely describes anything as _‘beautiful.’_  It shows on B’s face, the further softening of his cheekbones, parting of his lips. L snaps a picture of it at the very moment of realization. He takes a number of photographs, opening the curtains just enough to let in a thin gauze of morning light, where it pools across B’s hips and thighs. When he’s snapped enough pictures to feel satisfied, he bends over B’s body and teethes at the rope across his hip, placing a firm hand on B’s knee when he gasps and twitches at the touch.

 

“I like the way you taste.” He moves the rope slightly, running his tongue over the indentations left on B’s skin. His hand roams down the length of B’s leg, bumping over the coils of rope and coming to rest on B’s ankle, then shifting his legs so that his ass is pressed up even higher. By now, arousal is so taut and thick in L’s groin that even the sheets brushing against his cock are a distraction. He takes in a deep, steadying breath -- in absolutely no hurry for either of them to come yet -- and forces himself to focus on B, delivering a kiss to his right ass cheek and running a finger under the edge of the rope that travels between his thighs.

 

“There’s so many things I want to do to you right now, but perhaps I ought to start with your ass?”

 

"You could do anything you want to me right now, I just need you to touch me," B's breath is ragged despite the fact that L's hands have barely been on him yet.

 

L smiles even though he expected to be met with nothing but enthusiasm. From the other nightstand drawer he examines his collection of toys, lube, and other novelties, frowning a little at a pink vinyl blindfold that must be left over from one of B’s disguises. He selects two plugs -- the glass one a stout, chunky shape, and the metal one curled at the end, with a vibrating core -- and places the whole lot within arms reach on the bed.

 

“You’ve been very patient,” L says, bending over B to give him a long, hungry kiss, his fingers deftly uncapping the lube at the same time. He pulls away with a sly smile. “That’s good. You’re going to need it.” Sitting back on his knees, he trails his wet fingers over B’s hip and into the cleft of his ass, circling and teasing the opening until B whimpers and pushes his hips back, asking for more.

 

* * *

 

 

Lawliet’s fingers dig gently into the edges of B’s ass, hesitating in a breath of a moment as Lawliet lowers his lips to the cleft, dragging his tongue just along the edges of the muscled flesh. _God, I would give him shit for the teasing if he wasn’t so fucking good with his mouth_.

The tiny flicks of L’s tongue at his entrance leave him twitching in the bindings, curling his toes towards the rope and gasping desperately. In the mirror he can see the knobs of Lawliet’s spine arcing, his movements sleek and deliberate.

When Lawliet pulls back with a gust of breath, B has a view of him bringing  his finger to his lips in the mirror. _Like I’m the most fascinating case he’s ever taken apart_. B’s own fingers fidget in the rope cuff, torn between wishing he could tear free and envelop Lawliet, and the bound safety of the ropes, marking him as Lawliet’s lover, pet, and plaything.

He doesn’t have to wait long before Lawliet’s fingers begin working his cheeks open, sliding in one, two fingers at last.  

“Fuck…Lawliet,” he moans, letting out a string of incoherent curses. From his curled up angle he can’t see Lawliet’s face, but can see his long spidery fingers working around his livid cock. He holds there for a moment longer, cock _aching_ and Lawliet’s fingers still working their way towards his prostate.

_God--- but I don’t want to go just yet. Don’t want this to end with any fucking ability to think._

_For either of us._

He squirms backwards away a bit, shimmying slightly in the bindings to meet Lawliet’s gaze and manage a ragged request, “Come on, come over here. I want to taste you. Want you to fuck my mouth, before you fuck me.”

 

* * *

 

B’s words pop L’s bubble of concentration with a shiver that travels all the way to his toes. He takes in B’s parted lips, the way his chest rises and falls beneath the rope bindings, and slowly, almost reluctantly, slides his fingers free. “One moment…” He finds the curved metal plug and considers the warped reflection of his eye in its surface, then slips it into his mouth and lathes it with his tongue. B’s ass is already slick with lube, and all it takes is a little spit to drive the plug in to replace L’s fingers, B letting out a low groan that cracks into a half-cry when L hits the button that turns on the vibration, ratcheting it up to mid-levels.

 

“How is it?” L comes to the side of the bed to face B, tugging at the rope that criss-crosses over his shoulder.

 

B's eyes roll back slightly. “The best fucking torture you can imagine, god.”

 

“I’d like a little of that, myself.” L holds up the slightly larger glass plug with a slight smirk. He already fingered himself a little while working his other hand into B, both the sight and sensation igniting a somewhat rare but nonetheless powerful craving to be filled up, too. He fingers himself again now, two slick digits up to the second knuckle, knowing by the crane of B’s head that he can see the whole process in the mirror behind him. “Watch,” L whispers, widening his stance and bending over just slightly, a hiss coming from his lips when he eases the plug in, his muscles stretching and clamping down.

 

“Shit,” B breathes out, the word shimmying with the vibration in his own ass.

 

L kisses him sloppy, getting his mouth wet and then following it with a few sips of water from the glass on the nightstand, liking how the moisture shines on B’s plush mouth and drips down his chin. “Nice…” He circles B’s lips with the head of his cock, one knee pressed into the mattress so he can get the angle right, the thickness in his ass making pleasure blossom up through his  stomach and balls. As if somehow attuned to it, B lifts and tilts his head, tonguing and sucking at the base of L’s shaft until L curses softly and white-knuckles his grip on the headboard, gathering himself with one deep breath before roughly pushing his cock into B’s pretty, perfect mouth. “I don’t plan to hold back.” His thrusts are slow but already deep, and he curls his free hand through B’s hair and pulls his head back enough so their gazes meet. “If you feel overwhelmed or need a break, just hit me.” Though his wrists are bound, there enough slack elsewhere for B to move his arms around.

 

* * *

 

 

B mumbles his assent, already focused on breathing and just _overwhelming_ himself with the length of Lawliet’s cock, the taste of precum raw at the back of his throat. The deeper Lawliet’s thrusts go, the more B feels like they are becoming one and the same, Lawliet guiding his every move, choking him deeper, harder.

 

_God, it’s too much and yet never fucking enough._

 

He can’t see much, his eyes starting to water from the kaleidoscope of sensation, but god, can he _feel_ everything. The heat is starting to build from the vibrations in his ass, driving all thoughts from his mind. His hips grind mindlessly into the bedsheets even as the breath is knocked from his lungs again, again. He focuses on breathing, listening to the ragged gasps torn from Lawliet’s throat filling him up as he struggles against the ropes. All of him is bound by the rhythm stitching their breath together, the hand in his hair alighting the familiar whisper in his mind of Lawliet _Lawliet Lawliet._

 

The orgasm tears over him like the memory of a freight train, arching through his back and swinging his arm into Lawliet’s leg. Lawliet pulls away from his mouth, touching B’s cock gently to let the last of the come seep through his fingers. When he looks up, Lawliet is breathing as hard as he is, staring with a mix of hunger and wonder.

 

“Christ, that was—Jesus. Wow.” B coughs slightly, body still recovering from the blaze of heated pleasure shimmering across his skin, “Didn’t expect that.”

 

Lawliet licks his fingers and strokes B’s  hair fondly, “I didn’t expect it either. You’ve done well. Do you think you can still handle me fucking you?”

 

B shivers down to his toes as Lawliet carefully switches off and removes the plug, “Yeah. I’d still beg you for it, if you wanted me to.”

 

* * *

 

L smiles faintly at the hitch of breathlessness in B’s voice. “No begging necessary,” he says, putting the vibrating plug aside. In truth, though, he does quite enjoy B’s desperateness in these moments -- it’s reassurance that no matter how many people B fucks on the job, L is his home, the one he’ll always return to.

 

There’s oodles of condoms in the nightstand; L grabs two and dabs a little lube inside one of them before rolling it on his still-rigid cock, slicking up the length of his shaft, as well. When preparations are finished, he kneels at B’s feet and grabs his bound ankles, hitching them over his left shoulder, the momentum tugging B onto his back. “Mm,” L hums quietly, admiring the loops of taut rope traveling over B’s chest and hips. He positions a pillow under B’s ass so that it’s propped up a bit, then teases the head of his cock against his opening. B hisses a little, his bound hands curled into fists.

 

“I thought you said begging wasn’t necessary? Liar.”

 

L huffs out a laugh. “You know you shouldn’t give me ideas.”

 

B might be rolling his eyes, but they still look up at him hungrily. “Come on...fuck me already.”

 

Rocking slowly at first, L relishes the tight grip of B’s ass, the shuddering gasp that runs through the length of his body. Every movement reminds him of the thick plug of glass tucked inside his own ass, teasing at his prostate. “You feel incredible... _you’re_ incredible.” L squeezes B’s feet with one hand and props himself up with the other, moving more in earnest, now, little fireworks of sensations pinging over his skin. Within a few minutes he can’t hold back any longer, plowing into B’s ass just as roughly as he did his mouth, their thighs clapping together in stark, steady rhythm.

 

“Oh fuck, _fuck_...” B unleashes a garbled, shocked cry, and though there’s no ejaculate this time, L feels the rolling spasm of his orgasm, all of his muscles tugging at L’s thrusting cock. It’s like a thread’s been pulled; a monstrous pleasure unravels all other senses and L comes long and hard, shouting out the letter of B’s name and biting down on the ropes that circle his ankles.

 

When he next opens his eyes he’s collapsed beside B, his lungs raw and his bones weak. “Well,” he begins, wiping a sheen of perspiration off his forehead. “Calling that ‘intense’ seems like an understatement.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Yeah. Yeah,” B’s voice feels far away even to himself. He gathers his breath and the shreds of his mind, shifting slightly as his body remembers the bindings.

 

“Give me a moment and I’ll cut you out of them. Don’t feel like I want to attempt untying right now.”

 

“Right yeah, I don’t want to be in these all morning,” B manages a snark, and Lawliet rolls towards him and presses his smile into B’s bare shoulder. B bumps his head back, the case of both a few days ago and those many years ago finally fading to a certain distance. _And look, there’s the smile I came to see._

 

_There’s the Lawliet I came to see._ He tilts his head upwards and Lawliet indulges him with a soft kiss. _As if I’m the only one that needs taking care of._ That thought comes with more bitterness than he intends, and he suddenly very much wants to be cut free of the rope, to wrap his arms around Lawliet and hold him tightly.

 

_To know what the case did to him, too_ . He stays quiet for now. _It’s….not likely I’ll get answers on that, will I?_

 

He settles for listening to Lawliet breathe instead.

 

It’s almost brightening outside, and B feels as if sleeping off the rest of the day, and their cases, is likely in order. Lawliet’s eyes are softened by release, but still underscored with dark circles from his gamut. _Three days…_ B shakes it off. _It’s not like I didn’t do worse, though the dates were set._

 

“Are you seeing better, now?” Lawliet nuzzles B’s shoulder to pull him out of his reverie, and sits slowly upright, reaching for the shears on the bedside table.

 

“Yeah, I am,” B holds still as Lawliet glides the cold metal along his legs, the cuts considerably sharper in his ears. Both due to the thickness of the rope and his senses more sharply attuned to reality. With Lawliet’s fingers tenderly brushing over his skin, exposing the red imprints left behind by the rope, it’s hard to imagine anything else exists.

 

“I’d like to do that to you again, for certain.”

 

“Yeah, you can….definitely do that,” B manages, shuffling closer to Lawliet’s unusually warm fingertips, before a vindictive curiosity bubbles up, “Maybe next time I’ll tie _you_ up.”

 

“ _No_ ,” the alarm on Lawliet’s face is  transformative, just for a moment the veneer cracks and B _sees_ him. _Same scars. Same wounds, even._

 

_You never let them heal._

 

“Alright,” B strokes his now-free arms gently along Lawliet’s shoulder, feeling an odd mix of guilt and satisfaction wash over him. The flash of terror is completely gone from Lawliet’s carved cheekbones for the moment, and he seems refocused on the evidence of their fucking, red and almost raw on B’s pale skin.

 

_I don’t know if it was right to want to see that._

 

Lawliet sits him up once the ropes are puddled in isolated loops on the duvet, eyes crawling over him in the mirror and carving his fingers reverently along the maps of markings. _His markings on me._

 

B meets his own, red eyes in the mirror, catching sight of Lawliet’s death date, “I killed someone this case.”

 

_God, why did I ---_

 

_I could never hide from him. And he probably knows but I just--- had to say it._ B tries not to think of the first time he’d half-whispered, half-screamed those words to Lawliet over the phone. _We’re never going back to that._

_He’s not leaving, and neither am I._

 

“I know,” L mumbles into his shoulder, as if in answer, but still not lifting his head to meet B’s eyes. He wraps a hand around B’s ribcage, opening his mouth like he might say something-- but at that moment, a strange, gurgling noise cuts through the weighted silence.

 

B can’t help it-- he laughs, just a tiny, nervous thing. _Of all fucking times to be hungry_ , “Is that you or?”

 

“Not sure. Might be both of us,” Lawliet shakes his head slightly, smiling a tiny bit too, “I think there’s some sweet bread and fruit in the kitchen.”

 

“Alright, breakfast, but sleep after?” B slips out of Lawliet’s grip, but takes his hand, as if to say, _it’s alright._

 

_You don’t have to say anything. Just stay here._

 

* * *

 

 

The kitchen is brighter with morning light, and L has already cast aside that few seconds of sheer, bottomless panic. _“Maybe next time I’ll tie_ you _up.”_ An innocent and even reasonable suggestion -- and also enough to make his fingers go numb and darken his vision at the corners. But the weather is perversely sunny, and L’s thoughts turn to B as he assembles them a light breakfast.

 

A part of him is pleased that B brought the truth out into the open; pleased, as well, that his own nose for bloodshed is just as sharp as ever. _It wasn’t just the odor of stale cigarettes that B brought in with him last night._ He puts the kettle on and cuts off a few thick slices of sweet bread with currants, spreading each with a generous helping of whipped butter. The tea is made with less precision than usual, sugar cubes tossed in without counting as he wonders _why_ B has to confess. _Can’t he just trust me to know, like always?_

 

Lurking in the corner is the fear that L can never quite bring himself to look at. _Is this my doing?_ The raspberries in the refrigerator are starting to collapse into sweet rot, too red and lurid to be appetizing. He reaches for a carton of blueberries, instead, popping a few into his mouth and letting the sweetness settle him.

 

B is massaging the marks at his wrists when L brings the tray in and sets it at the foot of the bed, not caring if they spill the tea. The sheets will need a good washing now, anyway. “Here you go.” L passes him a mug and settles in against the headboard, tucking himself behind B and pulling on his shoulder until he relaxes against him. “I brought your cigarettes.” He points at the corner of the tray. “Though you might want one.”

 

“Yeah, thanks.” B eats half his sweet bread then lights up, leaning even deeper into L as he exhales, then passing the cigarette behind him, holding it steady for L to take a quick puff.

 

L sticks to the berries, mostly, eating less for pleasure and more to ward off a nagging low-blood sugar headache. His free hand rakes through B’s tangle of curls, his fingertips tracing the bumps of his skull. Without really planning on it, he tips his head far enough to kiss the top of B’s head.

 

“I’m glad you’re here.” He means it. No matter what baggage he brings with him, L always wants B _here_ , back home. He massages tender circles over the marks on B’s wrists. “Do you want to talk about her? Nance, I mean.”

 

* * *

 

“Not much to say other than she was a great person, and I wish her number hadn’t been up,” B takes a drag of the cigarette, catching the hint of a tiny, though expected, note of relief in Lawliet’s eyes. _I mean neither of us want to drag up the past shit when we’ve got so little time together, right?_

 

“I think I was just wishing I hadn’t known. Or wishing I could have done something.”

 

“That’s understandable. I think we all wonder, sometimes, if we’re doing the right thing or not,” Lawliet seems strangely distant as he says it. _Is this his way of asking who I killed?_  Lawliet leans in close, then rather than a kiss, steals a small nibble of the sweet bread dangling loosely in his hand. B can’t help it, he grins a little. _That seems like the right thing, for once._

 

“Yeah well. It’s not like knowing doesn’t help, with some things,” B nuzzles Lawliet’s shoulder, trying to think past their work, think of what they might do once they’ve both got enough sleep in them.

 

“Some of those things are certainly good things,” Lawliet sounds almost like he is trying to reassure himself as much as B, but then the moment passes and he squeezes B’s fingers tightly again.

 

_You’re a good thing._ B thinks to himself, but bites his tongue on the thought, _and maybe the only good thing I’m allowed to have._

 

“You’re right,” B taps the ash off his cigarette and stubs it out. He sets the food on the bedside table and brushes his lips against Lawliet before settling his head into the strange comfort of L’s collarbones.

 

“I’m glad you’re here, too. Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> A few visual references:
> 
> \- The haze harness that L ties on B can be seen here: http://fetishweekly.tumblr.com/post/93260916407/shibari-tutorial-haze-harness-always-practice
> 
> \- The leg bindings: http://fetishweekly.tumblr.com/post/84273191202/this-weeks-rope-%E8%B5%A4%E3%81%9A%E3%81%8D%E3%82%93%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93-model-hazel-maybrook
> 
> \- Wrist bindings: http://fetishweekly.tumblr.com/post/80733457516/shibari-tutorial-consequence-collar-cuff-a
> 
>  
> 
> Please leave us a comment! Kudos are also lovely but we rarely get comments and appreciate all of them, no matter how short and sweet <3


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